Raw Wild Rice Salad

I really had no intention of posting this dish.  If I did, I would have tried to make it look better.  Basically it came about because of my recent obsession with soaking and sprouting nuts, seeds and legumes, which has been an interesting mix of successes and failures.

I’ve had a bag of wild rice sitting around in my pantry for some time, but I’ve always thought wild rice has a strange taste to it, so it was hard to get excited about it.  I decided to soak the rice, just for kicks.  I did this for about two days, and then on a (hungry) whim threw together this salad, which was actually really, really tasty  – and totally raw. For some reason it just works together.  I didn’t take measurements, so this is approximate, and should serve about 2.

Ingredients for the salad:

• wild rice, soaked in filtered water for 2 days or until soft and chewy (change water once a day)
• fresh, raw colorful vegetables (I used carrots, tomatoes, red bell pepper and cucumber
• a bed of greens (I used baby spinach leaves and arugala)

Ingredients for the dressing:

• juice of one lemon
• pinch of dried tarragon (this was totally random, I just bought it for kicks because I’ve never used it; any old dried herb — or none at all — would be just as fine)
• about 2 fistfuls of fresh parsley
• some flaxseed oil, maybe a T or
• a small chunk of fresh ginger, minced
• about a T or so of raw apple cider vinegar  (use more lemon juice if you can’t find it)
• about 1 tsp of raw honey
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

To make:

1. Mix together the rice and veggies in a bowl.
2. Make the dressing: I used my handy new immersion blender to make the dressing.  It came with a cup that the blender fits neatly into, which is perfect for making dressings  – just put all the dressing ingredients in there and blend away.  If you don’t have one, I might suggest chopping the parsley very finely (a regular food processor works great for this) and mixing it in with the rice and veggies, then just whisk together the remaining dressing ingredients.
3. Pour dressing over rice and veggies and mix.
4. Serve over bed of greens.